


I Don't Want a Lot For Christmas

by newisalwaysbetter



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Ambiguous Relationships, Canon Compliant, Christmas Fluff, Emotions, F/M, Fluff, Flynn is a mess, Improvised Gifts, Jiya and Rufus are together but the rest is unclear, M/M, Mild Angst, Multi, NOT Religious, No Jessica in this one, Sugary sweet, but we love him, cuteness, for simplicity's sake, just an excuse to give gifts, mostly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 07:28:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17956196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newisalwaysbetter/pseuds/newisalwaysbetter
Summary: The Team celebrates Christmas in the bunker with improvised gifts. Wherein Rufus and Jiya are real cute and Lucy, Wyatt and Flynn are still figuring things out. Gifts are hard to come by in the bunker, but as usual, they help each other find a way.(Nothing to do with the Christmas movie.)





	I Don't Want a Lot For Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome Friends! This theoretically takes place in some imaginary space mid-S2 wherein Flynn is at the bunker, but Jessica isn't.  
> The Wyatt/Lucy/Flynn love triangle is left up to your preferences, and is based solely off of canon indicators of their respective intimacies.

It's early on December 25 when Jiya shakes Lucy awake on the couch. Lucy rolls over to find something small and sparkling on the table in front of her--a Christmas tree, she realizes, barely three feet tall, but draped in twinkling lights and with a number of small packages under it, wrapped in a newspaper and old documents. Lucy gapes up at Jiya, who holds a finger to her lips. Her eyes are sparkling. "Rufus is getting Wyatt and Mason," she whispers. "Can you...y'know...get Flynn?"

Lucy sits up, brushing the hair from her face, and smiles brightly. She nods.

When she knocks on his door, Flynn sticks his head out. Lucy knows firsthand that he sleeps in his clothes, so she's not at all surprised to see him in a flannel shirt and jeans, although his hair is a mess. "What's wrong? Is it the _Mothership?_ "

"Nothing's wrong." Lucy can't contain her smile. "Just come see."

Flynn pads down the hallway behind her, a tall, comforting presence. They arrive in the main room to find Rufus, Jiya and Connor gathered around the tree. Wyatt looks up as they approach; he's placing the last of the packages under the tree. Agent Christopher leans against the wall, smiling.

"I know we'd all rather be with our families." Rufus rubs his hands together nervously. There's a sudden silence, and he continues quickly, "but that doesn't mean we can't have our own little celebration, right?"

Lucy sniffs the air. "Is that...turkey?"

"Nah, I smell bread pudding," Wyatt says.

"It's both!" Jiya is practically bouncing up and down. "Agent Christopher got the food for us, and Rufus and I worked all night on it. So..." she grins tensely. "What do you think?"

"Guys, this is...incredible." Wyatt laughs and runs a hand through his hair.

Lucy hugs Jiya. "This is..." she sighs, and tears sparkle in her eyes. "I can't believe you managed to keep this a secret."

"Look who's talking." Wyatt grins up from the floor. "You think we didn't notice you stealing the paper every day?"

Lucy swipes a hand over her eyes, once, quick enough to miss. "I thought I was _very_ subtle."

Wyatt stands, shoving his hands in his pockets and smiling ruefully. "Denise only brought us one paper. Where else was it gonna go?"

Lucy smiles and wraps Rufus in a hug. She sniffles, and he whispers, "Hey, you okay?"

Lucy doesn't answer. She spots Flynn over Rufus's shoulder and catches him smiling, but there's an exhausted grief behind his eyes. He looks away, and against her will, Lucy feels fresh tears.

Rufus notices when they pull apart, and Lucy is too distracted to see him exchange a look with Jiya.

Jiya swallows hard, then puts the smile back on. "We've got presents! Sit down, sit down."

"I've got to get home before Grace and the kids wake up," Agent Christopher says, "but I'll come check on you all later today. Merry Christmas, everyone." Lucy catches her in a hug. They make teary eye contact, and Agent Christopher squeezes her shoulder tightly.

Agent Christopher makes eye contact with the others over Lucy's shoulder, and nods lightly.

Lucy is still frozen in place, so Wyatt comes up behind her and lays a gentle hand on her shoulder. "C'mon," he says softly, and Lucy nods. "We can't start without you, yeah?"

They settle onto the couch, Wyatt's arm draped along the back behind her. Connor pulls over a chair, and Jiya takes the loveseat while Rufus hovers nearby.

Flynn stands next to the couch on Lucy's other side, hands in his pockets. His uncertainty hangs in the air like a magnetic field. 

Lucy reaches over and tugs on his sleeve. Flynn looks down at her, lost, and Lucy nods at the couch next to her. "Here."

With trepidation, Flynn perches on the arm of the couch, nearly two feet away. He holds Lucy's gaze, and then his eyes slide sideways, to where Wyatt is bristling beside her. Lucy purses her lips, and gives Wyatt's leg a squeeze. Flynn's left hand hangs down to the couch, and Lucy discreetly slips her hand into hers.

"Presents!" Rufus does his best impression of oblivious, which isn't much. "One for you, one for you..." He tosses small gifts to Lucy, Connor and Wyatt. Flynn is tactfully not looking, rather observing Lucy's delight. His head jerks up when Rufus says easily, "Hey, Flynn. Catch."

Flynn plucks it out of the air on instinct, but still gives Rufus an uncertain look and turns the small package over in his hands.

"What?" Rufus seems pleased. "Even time-traveling ex-terrorists like Christmas presents. Right?"

"Yes, of course," Flynn mutters, still examining his gift.

Rufus drops onto the loveseat and presses a gift into Jiya's hands with a kiss on the cheek. He can't sit still. "Okay, open them."

Connor peels the wrapping off his gift to find a small, buzzing chip. He holds it up tot he light. "And what, pray tell, is this?"

"It's a new chip," Jiya bursts out. "For that big project you've been working on. Rufus and I made it together; you should be able to reverse-engineer it into the current model."

"A problem...and a solution." Connor's eyes sparkle. "Oh, this is wonderful. Is it okay if--if I--" he rises from the chair, still examining the chip. Jiya giggles.

"Yeah, go ahead, Connor." Rufus waves him off. "We'll come get you when it's time to eat, okay?" Connor makes a sound very like a squeak and practically runs off.

"Me next?" When Lucy nods, Wyatt rips into his package and pulls out a set of earpieces. "Really nice." He looks up. "Um, what are they?"

"Non-satellite communication earpieces." Jiya smiles like a cat. "They run on a custom frequency. As reliable as walkie-talkies over short distances, but five times smaller." She fixes Rufus with an unreadable gaze. "For your next mission."

Rufus wraps her in his arms. "You've literally saved my life," he says, louder than necessary. His laugh is nervous

Jiya isn't smiling.

Wyatt is still examining the earpieces. "What, for real?" He looks up to glance back and forth from Jiya to the earpieces, and though Jiya smiles, there's something locked up behind her eyes.

Wyatt doesn't seem to notice. "That is _awesome._ God, these'll be so helpful..." He leans forward to clap Rufus on the knee. "Why couldn't you have made these sooner, huh?"

"Hey, don't look at me." Rufus holds up his hands. "It was all Jiya."

"Damn straight." Wyatt grins. "You've got a good one there, buddy." He can't resist a glance at Lucy, brief, admiring. "And I'd know."

Lucy is tugging the tape off of her gift to reveal a flash drive. "What's this?"

"Pictures." Rufus leans forward, eyes on the ground, elbows resting on his knees. His eyes are very large. "Of every time period we've visited. Rittenhouse wanted them, but I...told them the camera was broken after the first trip. Guess they didn't care so much about pictures when they had the recordings." Jiya rubs a comforting hand over his back, and he looks up. "I...thought you might like them."

"Pictures," Lucy says, breathless. "Oh, Rufus, that's wonderful." She spots the panic in his eyes, and leans forward to clasp Rufus's hands in hers. "And I'm so sorry."

There are dark circles under his eyes, and Rufus's smile is thin. "Glad all my spying brought a little good..." 

Jiya is watching him as she unwraps her gift, but then she looks down and squeals. Rufus looks over, face breaking into a smile, and Jiya catches him in a kiss. The others smile, and Jiya holds up a rough-hewn homemade pin, roughly shaped like the Starfleet icon. Rufus is grinning. "I never thought I'd use those blacksmithing skills from the 1700s ever again." His smile fades. "Flynn? Buddy? You okay?"

Flynn hasn't moved, but sits completely still, holding his unwrapped gift in his hands. he doesn't respond. Lucy leans over to look.

It's a very small picture, in a handmade metal frame carefully soldered together. The picture is clearly from a cheap color printer, but Flynn is examining it like it's gold. Lucy makes out two people in the picture, sitting in what looks like a hospital. She realizes with a start that one of the people in the picture is Flynn, but maybe ten years younger. He's sitting next to a woman in a hospital gown who's cradling a baby in her arms. Lucy swallows.

"It took us a while to dig it up, but." Rufus is looking at the ground. "I know you didn't get out with much, so. Until you really get them back...this should help?"

Lucy reaches up to squeeze Flynn's shoulder, and he looks up. His eyes are wet.

"Thank you," he whispers in a rasp, looking back down at the picture. " _Thank you_."

"We've all got families," Rufus says quietly. Flynn doesn't respond,, still running his fingers over the picture. Lucy rubs his arm gently.

Wyatt coughs. "I'm seeing more presents under that tree, yeah?" He elbows Lucy with a tight smile. "Don't think I didn't notice you wrapping those last night."

Lucy smiles back, a playful spirit dancing in her eyes. "And what about you?"

"Well, let's see..." Wyatt says with exaggerated curiosity. "Lucy...Rufus...Jiya...Rufus...me...and....here." He leans over Lucy to offer Flynn two small packages, and Flynn accepts them, still looking faintly lost.

Jiya opens her first present, which Lucy has wrapped with scraps of newspaper. It turns out to be a small notebook, filled with arithmetic calculations. Jiya looks at the name on the front and gapes. "This is..."

"Katherine Johnson's calculations for the first moon shot," Lucy says, grinning. "Don't worry, I took it out of her trash. I thought you might like it."

Lucy cradles the notebook to her chest. "I love it," she whispers with a smile. "Thank you."

Lucy reaches out and squeezes her hand.

From Wyatt, Jiya opens a paper bag to find a familar-looking alarm clock. She gives him a funny look. "This is mine. It broke weeks ago."

"I'm no engineer." Wyatt looks embarrassed. "But I can fix a couple of busted wires. It's not much you couldn't do yourself, but." He claps his hands together. "It's one more thing off your plate, yeah?"

"Yeah." Jiya gives him a genuine smile. "Thank you."

There's one last gift in her pile: a small bag of granola, tied with loose string. Although there's no label on it, Jiya recognizes it all the same. She's been secretly guzzling it out of the cupboard for weeks. She's joked to Rufus the other day that she was addicted, and she'd thought they'd been out of earshot.

They've never discussed it, but they all know who's been making it. They just didn't know he'd noticed.

Jiya looks up cautiously, and says in a low voice, "Thanks, Flynn."

He nods. After a long, awkward moment, Flynn adds, "That's all for you. Don't let Rufus eat all of it."

Rufus slides a protective arm around Jiya's shoulders.

"Rufus, you put all this together," Lucy says eagerly. "Want to open yours next?"

In a paper bag from Wyatt, Rufus finds a small bottle of cologne. "I lifted that for you last time we were out." Wyatt smirks, twinkling. "Though it's really a gift for Jiya, mm?" He winks, and Rufus snorts. "Enjoy, buddy."

From Lucy, Rufus gets a box of chocolate-covered Twinkies, and the memory makes him laugh.

"Chocodiles! You remembered."

"Agent Christopher helped me get them," Lucy says, smiling.

"She was keeping  _all_ our secrets?" Rufus shakes his head. "She is _good._ "

The last package is the largest. Rufus unties a clean rag to reveal a complete set of wrenches and screwdrivers, all jumbled together.

"This--this is great." Rufus's excitement is palpable as he examines them and makes sure every size is accounted for. "It'll be so much easier to repair that piece of junk with these, I'll--" he breaks off midsentence, squinting at Flynn. "...Where did you get these?"

Flynn winks. "Better not to know. Besides, it's an apology for having Al Capone shoot you that time."

"Right." Rufus nods. "...Thanks."

"What, Jiya," Wyatt says, "you didn't get anything for Rufus?" He leans forward with a grin and wiggles his eyebrows. "Or is that for later?'

"Definitely for later," Jiya says, and curls against Rufus with a smile. Wyatt gives a wolf whistle, and Rufus hides his face in embarrassment.

"You next, Wyatt."

Wyatt goes right for it, ripping the paper off his gifts with childlike abandon. Lucy laughs and leans her head on Wyatt's shoulder. He unrolls a red silk tie and makes an appreciative sound.

"Classic, professional, timeless." Lucy gives him a smile. "One hundred percent historian-approved."

Wyatt turns to look at her, grinning mockingly. "Aww, did you steal this for me?  _So_ sweet." Lucy rolls her eyes, and Wyatt pecks her on the cheek.

Wyatt's other gift is a metal case with a ragged length of string tied around it like a ribbon. He holds it up and gives a side-eye over Lucy's head. "Flynn, did you get this for me?"

Ducking his head in embarrassment, Flynn gestures to the case.

Wyatt slides off the string and pops the case open. "Holy shit." Lucy leans over to see a pair of slick silver pistols sitting neatly in the case.

"More guns?"

"Not just  _guns_ _._ The latest models," Wyatt says with awe. "These aren't even on the market yet. These are--" he breaks off, looking at them with excitement.

Lucy narrows her eyes and glances up at Flynn. He wets his lips . "Don't ask where they came from."

"Hell, I don't even care. These are awesome." Wyatt goes to look up, but suddenly seems embarrassed and can't meet Flynn's eyes. "...Thanks, Flynn."

Flynn nods, studying the opposite wall. Wyatt notices, and reaches behind Lucy to clap Flynn on the back. "I'm serious." He leans back, nodding certainly, and gives Lucy a nudge. "C'mon, open yours now."

Besides the flash drive from Rufus and Jiya, Lucy gets a bottle of vodka from Flynn and a 1940s dress from Wyatt. Lucy holds them in her lap, the memories of both encounters heavy in the air. Wyatt's warm presence wraps around her left side, one arm thrown over the back of her seat, and Flynn hovers protectively over her other side, tall and very close. Lucy smiles in spite of herself, and looks from Wyatt and Flynn. Wyatt is watching Flynn, jaw clenched, so Lucy squeezes his hand tightly and he soothes, face softening as he looks to her. She finds Flynn watching, and reaches up to take the hand resting on his lap.

Flynn interlaces his fingers with hers. After a long moment of looking away, he studies her, his reptilian gaze unreadable. He doesn't move his hand away.

With their hands in hers, Lucy can't help smiling. "Thanks, guys."

Jiya breaks the warm silence. "I"m gonna go check on the turkey." She squeezes Rufus's shoulder and gets up.

Lucy pats Flynn's knee. "You haven't opened yours yet."

Flynn has two packages in his lap: a scrap of fabric tied around a small object, and a thin box wrapped in blank pieces of paper. He unties the first one to reveal a miniature shaving kit.

He's looking at it when Wyatt leans over. He clears his throat. "You started looking a little scruffy, and I know how much you care about your...grooming." He breaks off, embarrassed by sincerity. "And I noticed you were always..." he gestures to his face and coughs. "Um, clean-shaven."

Flynn blinks several times, then gives a serpentine nod. Lucy nudges him. "Mine next."

Flynn is careful as he peels the paper off of Lucy's gift, and doesn't rip the paper. He finds a slim paperback titled  _American History of Aeronautics and National Defense_.

"You said you missed books while you were in prison," Lucy says. "I thought you might like this one?"

Flynn nods, still looking at the book. "Yes," he says after a moment. "You're right." He looks over, finally, and gives Lucy a gentle smile. There's something curious in it. "Thank you," he says deliberately, and Lucy squeezes his hand.

On her other side, Wyatt presses a kiss to her shoulder.

In a moment, they will remember that Rufus is sitting there, and his joke will shatter through the delicate filament of this moment. Then Jiya will call them over to dinner, and someone will have to tear Connor away from his work, and soon enough Agent Christopher will return and they will all settle comfortably into who they were before. But for a long moment, everything is blissfully silent, and the lights on the tree are sparkling in each of their eyes. It seems appropriate to their mixed-up history that, so close to the new year, things will soon go back to where they were before, but for now, everything is new.


End file.
